This Palestinian startup is using touch technology to help kids affected by autism

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After completing a graduation project that turns
any transparent surface into a touch screen, three engineers from
the West Bank realized that their project could help rehabilitate
children suffering from stress-related disorders.

They launched Iris Solutions in 2012 with $15,000 of their
own money, with the goal of providing specialized immersive
technology based on interactive touch screens.

And, while working on an array of touch tech projects in
applications as diverse as healthcare and marketing, the
British-Palestinian organization Medical Aid for
Palestinians (MAP), approached Iris with a request that
took the company in a new direction. MAP asked them to build the
first sensory
room in Palestine.

What it is

Sensory rooms are environments that help develop a person’s
sense through light, music and objects. They are used for therapy
for children and adults with disabilities. By creating a safe
environment, children and adults learn to focus better, engage with
others and develop key vocalization and motor skills.

“We received quite good feedback from the specialists, from the
children, from the mothers and so we saw there is a big opportunity
here, in respect to quality and in respect to need,” said Ayman
Arandi, cofounder of Iris Solutions.

After that initial success, they went on to install 15 sensory
rooms in the West Bank and Gaza, serving over 5,000 children with
various developmental and stress-related
disorders, particularly autism spectrum disorder or
post-traumatic stress disorder attributed to instability in the
region.

Good feedback aside, their product was not cheap, with each
sensory room carrying a price tag of $20,000 to $25,000.

So, the team began to look for ways to reduce costs and create a
smaller product. Realizing that the software they were developing
had massive value, they enlisted the help of psychologists and
experts in behavioral disorders from around the world to help
develop content while the Iris team built the first prototype of
the Sensory Box.

The product is deceptively simple. Users replace standard
lightbulbs with Iris’ bulbs, and install a dongle in their
television sets. When activated, a child is able to control the
room’s environment, including sounds, light intensity and color,
via an app on their tablet. They aim to sell Sensory Box for around
$4,500, a fraction of the cost of sensory rooms.

“The Sensory Box is an innovative and affordable
approach to create a rehabilitation-friendly safe environment
for both centers and household families who have
children with stress or developmental disorders,” Arandi
said.

“Through the controlled environment of light, sounds and
interactive games, the sensory box offers a calming and stabilizing
medium in which a child can connect easier with others,” he
continued.

A provisional patent for their technology has just been approved
in the US, Arandi noted.

Scouting for investors

Iris is doing well by many measures. After bringing in
a total of nearly $1 million in revenue, (60 percent from general
services they provide to their clients and 40 percent from the
sensory related services), they’re now looking for investors to
help them expand.

“We've invested more than $300,000 and 2 years of
research into developing an affordable and
portable sensory environment,” Arandi said. “Now, we’re
looking for investors to help us scale sensory box regionally.”

They’re looking to raise anywhere between $750,000 and $1.5
million and believe their best first markets will be
Palestine, Jordan, UAE and Saudi Arabia.

“We travelled to all these countries to start targeting the
biggest rehabilitation centers in those countries, to
hopefully offer [Sensory Box] to kids of families that
are involved with these centers and possible create a royalty
model,” Arandi said.

In the meantime they’re looking for the right partners
to help them grow Sensory Box regionally and eventually
internationally. They’re keen to talk to international investors
who can help them enter the US market.

With all their success, the team at Iris faces
substantial obstacles as a result of their location. For instance,
Israeli customs holds the hardware they import to build their
products for months at a time.

“It’s a nightmare for us. Sometimes we pay bills and
taxes on the goods, we don’t know where they’re coming from,”
Arandi said. “And sometimes the goods never come. One year we
bought three projectors and they got stuck at the port for 6
months.”

To get around these restrictions they’re looking to open an
office in Jordan in the very near future.

So why didn’t Arandi and his team leave sooner?

“Its
part of giving back to our society and country,” he said.”
Promoting economic development is part of resisting the occupation.
There are opportunities everywhere, and Palestine has
opportunities too.”